Things are happening fast in Colorado’s reintroduced wolf world. In just the first two weeks of 2025, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) announced a conflict management plan and denied a petition to delay further wolf reintroduction. The agency is now moving ahead with bringing Canadian wolves into the state for the second round of reintroduction with reports suggesting the animals are already here. CPW neither confirmed nor denied those reports to The Sopris Sun.
Colorado Republican Congress members, including Lauren Boebert (CD-4) and Jeff Hurd (CD-3), are up in arms. “After years of slighting or outright ignoring Colorado farmers and ranchers with politically appointed anti-agricultural activists and ‘meat-free days,’ bureaucrats in Colorado have rushed through the importation of Canadian gray wolves and have set them loose in our state despite numerous protests and questions about the legality of this dysfunctional and chaotic approach,” they said in a Jan. 13 joint statement.
This recent uproar began on Jan. 8, when the CPW Commission discussed a petition, submitted last fall by the Middle Park Cattlemen’s Association on behalf of 25 organizations across the Western Slope, to pause wolf reintroduction until seven conditions are met. Those included adopting a definition of chronic depredation and implementing site assessment, range riding and carcass management programs. Cattlemen also asked CPW to put together a rapid response team to examine livestock depredations and to communicate with livestock producers in advance of any wolf introduction.
In a Dec. 21 letter to the commission, Jeff Davis, CPW director, wrote that halting wolf reintroduction would violate the law and the will of Colorado voters who approved wolf reintroduction in 2020. He added that it is contrary to the Colorado Wolf Management and Restoration Plan as well as the biological principles guiding the plan.
More wolves on the ground could reduce livestock predation. “The science guiding wolf reintroduction indicates that individual wolves who have not formed into packs move unpredictably, range across a greater geographical footprint and may be more likely to resort to livestock as a food source,” said Davis. He added that packs and breeding pairs are more predictable, hunt as groups instead of individually and are more likely to go after elk and deer. He recommended denial of the petition.
Davis defended his position at the Jan. 8 meeting, stating that work on the conflict management plan did not start with the petition. “We started working on this six months before the [Proposition 114] vote,” he said.
But non-lethal conflict management was not made a requirement for livestock predation reimbursement in the final wolf management plan, which was approved in May 2023. Ecologist Delia Malone, president of ColoradoWild, told The Sopris Sun that the original plan included the requirement. “But it was taken out of the final plan,” she said.
Still, CPW has been playing catch-up since April, 2024 when the first collared wolf depredations were reported. At the January meeting, Commissioner Eden Vardy said the conditions-based petition was helpful. “It gave the agency a concrete opportunity to respond to very specific and addressable concerns.”
Livestock growers have been clamoring for direction from the agency, particularly with non-lethal conflict minimization methods, like fladry (flags along a fence line), noise deterrents, range riders, a definition of chronic depredation and for lethal control of the wolves.
Due to their federal and state endangered species status, it’s illegal to kill a gray wolf in Colorado unless it is threatening human life or when authorized by the state. The Colorado Republican Congressional delegation wants to take care of that, too. “With wolf numbers surging across the country, we stand united in support of legislation like H.R. 130 to delist the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act,” they said.
Ranchers have also requested more transparency from the agency. “We as producers have no idea if wolves are being released in our area or even within the region,” said Tom Harrington, president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association in a statement to The Sopris Sun. “The ability of a wolf to travel far in a short time implies to me that many producers should be alerted to releases and wolf activity anywhere in their region with more than a few hours notice.”
CPW remains firm about not telling anyone where or when wolves are being released. “CPW will not be sharing wolf release details while the operation is underway,” said Rachael Gonzales, Northwest Region public information officer, in an email to The Sopris Sun. “We will issue a press release and hold a press conference with our experts to answer all media questions when the operation is complete and when our experts are available.”
CPW says the conflict management plan presented at the Jan. 8 meeting addresses the petition’s conditions. But Harrington disagrees, stating, among other things, that the range rider program will not be ready until April, the site assessment program is incomplete and the definition of chronic depredation is lacking. “Tell a producer that losing 20 lambs or calves in one night doesn’t qualify for lethal removal of a problem wolf or pack and try explaining that logic,” he said.
The commission voted 10-1 to deny the petition with Commissioner Marie Haskett casting the sole dissenting vote. “If we don’t go forward with this project, in my opinion, we’ve trashed it,” said Commissioner James Jay Tutchton. “I’m very concerned that a lot of the folks that are in my constituency will view that as a breach of trust.”
You can find CPW’s Conflict Minimization Guide at www.tinyurl.com/WolfGuideCO Applications for the range rider program are available at www.tinyurl.com/RangeRiderCO More information and meeting links are on CPW’s website.